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Introduction
This option focuses on the legend of King Arthur and his Fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table, with the special emphasis on the way it was represented in the English histories and literature. Our exploration of English Arthurian tradition will take us far back into the early medieval period and enable us to explore how the legend of Arthur has been recast and reinvented in a range of artistic forms over the centuries, from chronicle to romance, poetry and prose, to the visual arts and modern-day cinema.
The course follows the earliest sources of the Arthurian legend in chronicle tradition, development of the legend into romance in the 12th-15th centuries and its connections with chivalric and courtly culture, later resurgence of the legend in Victorian culture, and reception of the legend in various modern media.
Class discussions will centre upon a group of key medieval Arthurian works, all of which are available as easily-accessible translations. These include Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, Layamon’s Brut, Chretien de Troyes’s The Knight of the Cart, the fourteenth-century masterpieces Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as well as the closing sections of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur.
We will also look at modern Arthurian adaptations, in particular the paintings of the pre-Raphaelite artists and 20th and 21st-century Arthurian films such as First Knight, King Arthur, and the parody Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Week 1: An Arthurian Itinerary
Week 1 classes trace the origins of Arthurian legend from the last days of Roman Britain to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s seminal twelfth-century History of the Kings of Britain. Arthurian legend is linked with numerous localities in England and Wales (including Oxford) and we explore how these connections were vital in the formation and dissemination of today’s legends. The earliest Arthurian material hails from Wales while other legends of Arthur’s birth and parentage unfold in Tintagel in Cornwall; the story of Arthur and the Holy Grail takes us to the sacred site of Glastonbury; a legend of Lancelot and Guinevere to Nottingham Castle; the round table is supposedly preserved in Winchester; and Arthurian connections can also be traced with London, Cheshire and Oxfordshire (including the site of Oxford Castle).
Week 2: The chronicle and romance traditions
We will explore how the medieval Arthurian tradition developed from its chronicle origins as poets began to use the legends as the subject matter of medieval romance. A study of twelfth and thirteenth century adaptations of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin History of the Kings of Britain by Wace and Layamon will help us to observe how the legends made the transition from historical to artistic treatments of The Matter of Britain. We also consider the influence of the emergent cult of fin amor or ‘courtly love’ on the Arthurian tradition, particularly in the story of Lancelot and his adulterous love for Queen Guinevere – seriously, as expressed in French romances (e.g. of Chretien de Troyes), or mockingly, as portrayed in the liaison between Lanval and the Fairy Queen by Marie de France.
Week 3: Legends of Arthur in the late 14th century
In this third week we will look in detail at two complex masterpieces of late-medieval English poetry, inspired by Arthurian tradition and setting: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. We will attempt to uncover which social and religious issues both authors highlighted with their clever use of the established cultural profiling of certain Arthurian characters as well as how they subverted their audience’s expectations.
Week 4: Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur
We look at the final two books of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’ Arthur, the first work to relate the entire Arthurian legend in English, Malory’s treatment of the by-then established Arthurian canon and the way the legend of the rise and fall of the Round Table fellowship relates to the historical context of the Wars of the Roses. We will also discuss the “canon vs fanon” theme found in Malory, and explore the character of Lancelot as Malory’s “Gary Stu” self-insertion.
Week 5 : Arthurian Adaptations
In our fifth week we focus on later adaptations of Arthurian legend in visual arts and, using our knowledge of the medieval tradition, and explore how later adapters and artists perpetuate certain key themes and motifs from the legends, discarding others. We look at nineteenth-century medievalist revival with a flourishing of Arthurian themes in magnificent visual arts of this period, particularly the vivid work of Pre-Raphaelite painters, among them Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, with close Oxford connections. Finally, we consider recent screen adaptations of Arthurian legends on silver screen.
Some reading before attending the programme is recommended.
© Oxford Academic Summer School Tours Ltd: for 2024
Oxford Summer School at Magdalen College, University of Oxford
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